OneCoin investment warning issued by Bank of Hungary

OneCoin have been making all sorts of announcements to their affiliates over the last few weeks, with their efforts not going unnoticed by regulators.

Hungary appear to be the first country to have investigated the scheme, concluding that a public warning needed to be issued.

In the investment warning, dated June 10th, the Bank of Hungary identifies OneCoin’ as a “virtual pyramid scheme”:

New trading platforms, similar to Bitcoin virtual currencies – such as OneCoin – combine investment and trade, thus making it theoretically possible to market to prospective investors.

In reality however, the virtual marketplace of the pyramid is maintained by the owner under exclusive jurisdiction, and can only be traded through via a closed “stock market”.

OneCoin have tried to create the illusion that their OneCoin Ponzi points will be traded by the general public, but as of yet only OneCoin affiliates (investors) are the only ones interested in the cryptocurrency.

Specifically pertaining to OneCoin’s compensation plan, the Bank of Hungary conclude the same:

(OneCoin) promises existing investors high yields by recruiting by new participants. As they join early investors receive commission payments and the commission payout is increased.

Should new investment slow down or dry up completely, the scheme collapses.

The investment in such companies involves special risks, since these assets are not included in the regulatory framework and are typically outside the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) and the European Union’s supervisory jurisdiction.

In the event OneCoin collapses, investors are not protected by the National Deposit Insurance Fund nor the Investor Protection Fund.

The Bank of Hungary has repeatedly warned consumers that before investing, verify that the service provider has the correct permissions monitoring.

OneCoin of course does not have the required permissions.

Looking forward, OneCoin investors have recently began advertising a US launch on July 4th.

July the 4th of course is a public holiday in the US, with further details of the purported launch yet to emerge.

Should OneCoin formally enter the US and set up operations however, one imagines it won’t be long before the scheme pops up on the SEC’s regulatory radar.

22 Comments on “OneCoin investment warning issued by Bank of Hungary”

As they join early investors receive commission payments and the commission payout is increased.

The commissions were never really paid out were they?

I hear that some of these webinar presenters claim they have been paid, but I always assumed it was just virtual ponzi point numbers on a backoffice dashboard.

I don’t know if they actually have bank wire automation going looking at the quality of their web presence (half-assed placeholder looking).

If they can’t get their credit card processor to work, what makes you think their eWallet solution onepay (.eu) will support bank-in, bank-out, and country specific payment options? Go to NOLINK://wallet.onepay.eu and see for yourself.

I assumed the reason Ruja and gang are so filthy rich is because they haven’t had to share the money with affiliates. After all, Rujamama did just buy a 4.2m euro house in Sofia Bulgaria.

Loni: NOLINK://wallet.onepay.eu doesn’t work? This is OneCoin’s wallet they are using?

That is supposed to be the wallet they plan on using for commission payouts.

This website is located in Sofia Bulgaria and shares the same “physical” address as the One World Foundation charity scam ran by OneCoin which both point to the same bank address.

They also state in their FAQ that commissions will be payed out through OnePay

Unless they get a payout solution going, there is going to be an uproar. As Oz stated perhaps the top affiliates are being paid through manual intervention through bank wires, but they will need automation here soon unless they plan on bolting on July 4th.

Ted doesn’t even link directly to the warning. Only to the front page of the Hungarian National Bank.

Also, they say “Pyramid” 3 times in that report yet Ted says they didn’t say Pyramid at all and tried to make it sound like a generalized cryptocurrency warning when it was clearly calling out OneCoin.

Then somehow he was able to get a response from Ruja in a single day in a prepared statement that had nothing to do with the alert.

Mr. Nuyten seems to not have learned anything from Troy Dooly and the Zeek Rewards fiasco.

Like Troy, Ted is totally soft soaping legitimate concerns and it seems like the only “due diligence” he performed for his article was to go to OneCoin insiders to ask how they want to spin this.

Both Troy and Zeek were inside the US so when Mr. Dooly was found to having been paid for his coverage of what was later held to be an unregistered security the SEC slapped him on the wrist and fined him.

OneCoin and Nuyten present a more complicated jurisdictional situation but if he is found to either having been paid or otherwise profiting from OneCoin I wouldn’t be surprised if Ted found himself in the cross hairs of one regulatory body or another.

Hi, what I like most about this is that I can get a bunch of worthless tokens, trick people into believing they are worth more than euros and THEN have them give euros for these useless tokens!

WOW I can get loads of these useless tokens in bulk then have people giving me real cash for useless tokens, I can receive the cash direct in my hand in exchange for useless token that has zero value.

Although surely I must be careful because the onus is on me since I accept the payment, and I hope people dont realise that why am I selling these tokens for cash if the tokens are gonna make me a gazillionaire :S , maybe people will realise if these tokens are so good why am i so desperate to exchange them to real cash?

Need more smoke and mirrors! Quickly lets put dr ruja on a billboard or something to give air of legitamacy please

so now that July the 4th has passed with all your bad speculations about onecoin, what did you get?

I think the more pertinent question is “what did OneCoin investors get”?

A big fat nothing from the sounds of it.

Where is the SEC registration disclosure? What happened to “entering the US through the front door”?

At this rate with no physical presence in the US, local investors are on a fast track to being personally held responsible for the promotion of OneCoin in the US (refer to a regulatory lawsuit filed against EmGoldex investors in Massachusetts).

you might be thinking that recruitment is mandatory in this company, well it is not. SO HOW COME IT IS A PONZI?

Whether recruitment is mandatory or not at an individual level is irrelevant.

New funds only enter the scheme via recruitment, so as a whole is is required. Required does not equate to mandatory on an individual investor level.

As for this having anything to do with a Ponzi, shuffling newly invested funds to pay off existing investors makes OneCoin a Ponzi scheme. Recruitment of new investors is neither here nor there.

And ONECOIN has been on a merger of a hybrid cyptocurrency AURUM GOLD COINS (AGC)

So you say. What’s your point?

The laws in UAE cannot be disregarded when it comes to registration of a business.

Why not? Are you saying there’s no crime in the UAE? Laws are reactive, not proactive.

And in any event, OneCoin likely has as much of a presence in the UAE as it does in the US. It’s being run out of Europe.

What you’re attempting to pull out is the old “if we were a scam we would have been shut down” ruse.

Note that the absence of regulatory action (in the UAE of all places) has nothing to do with establishing whether or not an opportunity is a Ponzi scheme.

That alone is determined by analysis of the business model, which reveals OneCoin shuffles newly invested funds around to pay off existing investors.

SCHUBERT MACARAT:
Well you might be thinking that recruitment is mandatory in this company, well it is not. SO HOW COME IT IS A PONZI? Recruitment is just optional.

You can’t test it against “random ideas” like that, and expect to get any meaningful answers. 🙂

Ponzies are normally based on fraudulent investments, e.g. Bernie Madoff didn’t pay investors for the recruitment of other investors, he recruited them himself (or via feeder programs).

So whether recruitment is optional or mandatory isn’t very relevant to look at. You will need to look at whether OneCoin is a type of investment or a commercial product, and whether it may be fraudulent.